The Subconscious Shelf: ♥

Chapter one. ‘He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion.’ No. Make that ‘He romanticized it all out of proportion. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white, and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.’

Bill, I adore New York City, and I adore you because it’s clear that you too adore New York City. Moreover, you’re that particular breed of New Yorker which many of us transplants aspired, wisely or not, one day to become. You romanticize New York City out of such proportion that you send a black-and-white photograph of a room decorated with a black-and-white photograph of Paris, but not a photograph you took yourself—an art poster in a black metal frame (this is a quintessential Upper West Side decorating technique, for readers farther afield). Three crystalline liquor bottles glint in the sunlight refracted by a chrome lamp. The dog, white and clean and smiling, a departed friend, perhaps, now a faithful watcher of the bookshelf—bookshelves being as crucial to the New Yorker’s interiors as asphalt is to his exteriors, the scaffolding erected around the cathedral of his cultural identity…

Corny. Too corny for a man of my taste.

Moving on, to the actual books: Carson McCullers, a beautiful Complete Works of Shakespeare, an aging copy of “The Catcher in the Rye,” a guide to publishing, Ansel Adams, “Julie and Julia,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Bataille, Eugenides, “The WPA Guide to New York City,” and one you’ve seemingly digested in full: “Living Large in Small Spaces: Expressing Personal Style in 100 to 1,000 Square Feet.” This is a well-rounded, ambitious shelf. A shelf with very few unromantic titles (I’m pretending not to have noticed “The Unix Programming Environment”). This is a shelf for a true New Yorker. When people see this shelf, Bill, I’m sure they think, He’s as tough and romantic as the city he loves.

Keep up the good work. New York’s your town, and it always will be.

Want your bookshelves analyzed? E-mail a photograph with your name and location to bookbench@gmail.com.